Peter Matthiessen - Shadow Country

“About what?” I challenged him loudly so that anyone who’d heard the rumors would know that Ed Watson had nothing to hide. But in a little while, Deputy Till showed up. I followed him outside. Clarence warned me that the sheriff was still looking for a way to get me extradited back to Arkansas. “Better sail tonight,” he said.

• • •

The day after I left Key West, Earl Harden arrived with the report that he and his brothers and Henry Short had found the Tuckers’ bodies. The Hamiltons on Lost Man’s Beach had heard two shots and later some trapper had seen Watson in his skiff headed upriver; he reported that Watson was alone. Earl did his best to hang it all on Watson but he had no evidence besides his own opinion. Until things cooled down, however, that one opinion might suffice to get me lynched: I decided to head north for a year or two. My friend Will Cox had written recently to say that local folks had mostly forgiven E. J. Watson for that Lem Collins business. Will had grown up in Lake City with the new sheriff, a man named Purvis, who promised to be understanding if Will’s friend decided to return.

With some misgivings, I arranged to leave the Bend in charge of a man named Green Waller. He was a drinker but he knew his hogs and could be depended on to stay where he was safe, since he was wanted on three counts of hog theft in Lee County. As for companionship, those pink-assed shoats would probably see him through. Erskine ran me north. By now he’d heard the rumors and was silent and uneasy. I told him he could use the schooner if he helped out at the Bend when a ship was needed to bring in supplies or field hands for the harvest, or pick up my syrup in late winter for delivery to the wholesalers at Tampa Bay.

At Caxambas, Tant was nowhere to be found. His sister Josie said he’d heard about those Tuckers and would never work for me again-her way of conveying her own moral disapproval-but called softly as I went away that she would always love me. Within the week, Sheriff Knight and his deputies would raid the Bend, where Green Waller, in his official capacity as plantation manager, informed him that Mr. E. J. Watson was no longer in residence at this address, being absent on business, whereabouts unknown.

I stopped over at Fort Myers to pick up my horse and bid good-bye to Mandy and the children. Mandy had moved to the ground floor because she could no longer make it up the stairs. Though it was midday, I found her in bed. Entering the small chamber, I realized that this would be the last time in this life I would set eyes on this creature I first knew as the young schoolteacher Jane Susan Dyal from Deland.

She’d been reading, as usual: her prayer was that her sight would see her to the door. She looked up with that bent shy smile that had enchanted me so many years before. I smiled, too, trying to hide my shock: the woman lying there was dying while still in her thirties. Already death inhabited her eyes and skin-a sharp blow to the solar plexus to see my dearest friend in this condition. How thin she was, how watery her eyes, her hair already lank and dead.

I leaned and drew her forward in my arms, pressing my lips to her yellowed neck to hide my tears. Scenting the death in her, I must have hugged too hard to cover my distress, for I had hurt her and she murmured just a little. When I drew back she looked at me and nodded. Mandy’s brain-and eyes and hands and mouth-knew all of Edgar Watson well, I could hide nothing.

I sat on the bedside and took her hands in mine, resisting an image of long years before, our Fort White cabin in early afternoon, the hot moss mattress and this willowy creature, hips soft yet strong astride me, eyes lightly closed and sweet mouth parted, releasing my hands and leaning backwards, twining her arms upwards in the air’s embrace, as if her transport must depend on that joyous arching. Even at this somber moment, the remembrance caused a disgraceful twitching in my britches. I did not wish to think about how those hips looked now, grayish and caved in under the covers.

“I’m so happy you have come!” she sighed. Lifting her fingers, I kissed the delicate bones. “Well, Mrs. Watson. And why are you lying about in bed on this fine day?” I rose to open the shutter, thinking sun and air might dispel the cat scent and shuttered heat, but of course it was the husband, not the wife, who needed comfort. Relieved by each other’s touch, needing no words, we sat there a good while in the midday quiet, and death sat with us. In a sudden rush of feeling I whispered that I loved her dearly and always would.

“How dearly, Mr. Watson?” she inquired, teasing. She had heard, of course, about the Island women and their children but more likely she was thinking about Charlie Collins, to whom I would have simply said, I love you.

“Edgar? I am failing pretty fast. You knew that.”

“Yes, I did.”

“Good. I’m so weary of all the pussyfooting and jolly bedside manner. Even Doc Winkler puts his finger to his lips to hush me when I ask frank questions. Tells me I must be a good little patient and just rest. Isn’t it astonishing? Even the children. They’re so brave and tactful I could smack them!”

Smiling a little at that idea, she blew her nose. “Is death so dreadful, Edgar?”

“Good Lord, sweetheart! How would I know!” I tried to laugh a little, aware there was something still unsaid, something I was not so sure I wished to hear. To deflect her, I promised I would look after our children, make sure that they got on all right in life.

Oh Papa, NO!

Rob’s words jumped to mind just as Mandy turned to peer at me in a queer way. “I beg of you, dearest, don’t turn your back on Rob. For her sake as well as your own. And please don’t call him Sonborn anymore.”

I winced, shaking my head. “Never again.” She was overjoyed when I said, very embarrassed, “I’ve discovered that I’ve loved him all along.”

“Oh! Have you told him so? It’s awkward for you, I know that-”

“I think he knows,” I lied. “Lucius knows your condition, I suppose.”

“I didn’t need to tell him. Carrie and Eddie know, of course, though Eddie pretends not to. They don’t want to deal with it quite yet. Not that Lucius refers to it, either, although sometimes I wish he would.” She seemed wistful. “He reveres you, Edgar. Perhaps you can talk with him a little. He’ll be home right after school.”

I was passing through town quickly, I explained. I had to go.

“Goodness! You’re in such a rush that you can’t wait even an hour?” She stared at me, intent, then closed her eyes, turning her head away. “I see,” she whispered.

“What?” I said, fighting her off. But because her children would have to deal with any rumors, she did not relent.

“Lucius is jeered at brutally at school. He refuses to believe the slanders, gets in dreadful fights.” In a different voice, she said, “Here in town, there is a story that when Mr. Watson goes to Colored Town, the darkies hide from him, that’s how scared they are that he might kidnap them.” She paused, hand clutching the coverlet. “They say no darkie ever comes back. They are thrown to the crocodiles.”

Overcome by what could never be undone, I stifled my protests, sinking onto my knees beside the bed, to pray or clear my heart or be forgiven before it was too late.

“Is Rob all right? He’s not involved?”

“Rob was in no way involved. He’s fine.”

I leaned and kissed her, overcome by an impulse to just quit, to lie down in her arms, lie down and give in to a flood of hopeless weeping- me! Mr. E. J. Mr. Watson, dry-eyed all these years, ached in his need of solace for so many losses. I longed to whine. I could have been the best farmer in south Florida, you know that, Mandy! All my great plans!- disgusting! A disgusting, low, self-pitying temptation to beg pity from a dying woman, especially this one who had never been fooled, who knew too well that for all the harm I had inflicted on myself, I had done far more to others. True, there were reasons, or at least excuses; she must be spared those, too.